Hello from Germany

Rist from Belgium just introduced himself. Neighbouring his country there is another well-known beer nation: Germany. That's where I live - and I wish we had some tea fields instead of breweries.About myself: My name is Gero, in a few weeks I'll turn 43 and this summer will mark my 30th tea anniversary. As a teenager I started cultivating a fascination (obsession?) with all things Japanese, which led me to tea (as you might guess, else I'd be rambling on a saké-forum). At university I did Japanese Studies, which took me to spend a year in Tokyo, where I made friends with a young Taiwanese couple. They were very much into tea, so we spent many nights doing gongfucha - and I fell in love with Oolong teas.Some years later I returned to Japan for a 3 month stay in Shizuoka: the prefecture producing about 50% of Japan's tea output. That was heaven to me - almost everyone I met had some connections to the tea business.Ten years ago I started working for a tea trading company - my dream come true. My field of working is not in purchases but rather in distribution (supporting and training our franchisees - the retailers). Our tea tasters know me for being an extreme tea nerd, so I get to try all the interesting samples they get. But in March and April I don't have to sample Darjeeling First Flush for several weeks like they do - just get to try the best ones.

30 years of relentless tea experimentations - where did it get me? To the point where I understand that even 300 years will not be sufficient to learn all there is to know about tea. About one year ago I had my first cup of sheng puer - and fell instantly in love. So I guess you'll meet me on TeaChat's puer forum most often.

Enough for now - you'll already have figured out that language limitations will not keep me from writing lenghty entries.

Always nice to see people from 'the neighbourhood'. I'll probably spend my scholarship in Germany, good to know that there are some German tea lovers as well. I assumed they only drank weissbier with jägermeister shots

Goodluck with your sheng puerh journey, very complicated tea with even more complicated names